Category: Q & A

If you wish to add users to your mailing list, then you will need to do an email confirmation, or "double opt-in" process at some point… And the sooner you get it out of the way, the better!

Doing it during initial registration is good for at least two reasons:

1. Your prospective users have no reason to dislike you yet 😉
2. By combining the registration/confirmation process in a single coherent double opt-in, you are legally covered… While still valid, splitting up the process over time can potentially leave an opening for some form of litigation, or more likely being labelled a spammer by block lists.

Of course, having a valid email address also provides numerous other benefits:

• reducing (a bit, anyway) the volume of fake user accounts, especially important for community/social/dating sites
• allowing for lost username/password requests to be fulfilled via the email address
• being able to notify all users simultaneously to outages, issues, and upgrades
• etc.

I'd agree with the idea that, if your service can be "tested" by consumers without giving a valid email address, that allowing users to kick the tires in a limited way will probably be a good thing, that helps push them towards the full signup.

Finally, I'd also say that despite all the positives, email is still an incredibly unreliable "identity token" as far as it goes… This is probably the number one strength of Facebook and Facebook Connect – because people use their real names (mostly), and a valid email address is required to sign up, then whenever you register users via Facebook Connect, you have:

• an "effective Double opt-in" – users click to register via FB Connect, and then confirm with Facebook that they want your site to have access to various pieces of data (including, presumably, email),
• a smoother/easier process for them that can fill out most, if not all of the registration fields automatically, and
• access to a working email address that is likely to be "primary for that user", and remain working for the foreseeable future.

Regardless of how you work your registration/signup page, just also make absolutely sure you provide similarly easy ways to unsubscribe/cancel accounts, the number one requested feature by users, across all sites with a registration process, that is still lacking in a lot of fairly reputable site (Starbucks, for example, requires a phone call to cancel their "SB Rewards" accounts… Absolutely no way to do it online).

Is requiring email confirmation bad for user experience?

The main reason to use Windows for web development these days is customer demand. It may suck in many ways as a web dev platform compared to OS X/Linux, but if you have a stable of legacy/enterprise clients who need to "stick with" Windows for some reason (IIS servers on the client side, backend integrations that would be costly and time-consuming to replace, etc), switching to an all-Mac environment isn't going to make your life any easier.

Of course, it's possible to develop for Windows from Mac machines, and vice versa… Again, this is just opinion, but using a Mac laptop/desktop with a virtual machine Windows environment is much easier long term than attempting the reverse (and actually, you'll want at least one setup like this to validate development on Windows browsers anyway).

No platform is perfect, but to use an overwhelming generalization without backing it up with facts and figures, the main drawback with the Mac platform for web development is the upfront cost, as you say. And even that will often gain you some productivity or other ROI wins down the line.

Is the Mac really a perfect platform for a web development studio? And worth the money?

The main change is in further enabling transactions to take place anywhere within, or even outside the bounds of the store itself. Bear with my explanation a bit, and it'll make sense:

Given the configuration of Apple Stores currently, there is usually a "front product" and "back community" zone.

You enter the store, and are presented immediately with all the line of products available – Macs, iPods, iPhones and iPads, and other Apple accessories (Cinema Displays, etc).

Further back, are the third party accessories, the Creative Training and Genius Bar areas, as well as any dedicated cash register/purchase queueing zones. For stores that have it, the "Family Room", and "Workshop Theater" are back here as well. For those familiar with the San Francisco (Frisco*) Flagship store, this roughly equates to the two floors – Product on the first floor, and Community on the second floor.

The main problem with this architecture is simple: the product area attracts lots of general interest – tire kickers, email checkers, people just wandering about waiting for their wife/girlfriend/mom/uncle to get done shopping at the Victoria's Secret next door, etc. This ties up a lot of Apple Specialists, who in the nicest way possible, must weave through these masses to help find people in need of purchasing assistance, who have Genius Bar appointments, or what have you.

Once you scoot past the front, life gets a bit more serious. Same amount of crowd, but now primarily composed of people trying to buy things, waiting for their name to be called for tech support or training appointments, or otherwise focused on an Apple Store-related task. And, at least in the stores I've visited, a significant percentage of these folks are a little touchy if they perceive someone as skipping the line, distracting "their" Apple Expert/Genius/Store Leader, etc.

To resolve all this, a greater push is on to turnaround transactions and appointments faster, without losing the high-touch, high-quality Apple experience. In order to do so, Apple is planning to address this in several ways:

• More stores. This is already underway, and isn't much of a change from the last few years.
• More hires. Apple is now hiring like crazy for its retail stores. The flagship in SF, for example, is already at ~300 employees, and they are looking to add significantly to that number in the coming weeks – both in front-of-house "Specialist" sales personnel, as well as back-of-the-house Geniuses and Experts to help handle support and "tier 2 customer service". Attack the flood of customers with a flood of assistance and support. Yay!
• More "turn power" for employees. Currently, a great many Apple Specialists carry devices that enable card swipe transactions, at least for some purchasable items… But in many stores, there are still third party products which need to be brought to a register with barcode scanner. Apple Store 2.0 changes that, by allowing almost everything purchased with credit cards to be handled directly by store employees – wherever they are in the store. Refunds as well should be covered in the system, along with setting and changing appointments, looking up customer histories, etc. This should allow for more customers to be served in the same amount of space and time than is currently possible.

The combination of the last two factors is aimed at allowing for continued growth in established locations (the SF flagship was originally designed for no more than 75 workers, for example), where it simply isn't practical to add additional space, or another full Apple Store.

What is Apple Store 2.0 like?

Whichever fits his or her style, energy, and goals better.

At the cultural level alone, they are such vastly different organizations – if you're at the point of receiving an offer, you likely have done a lot of due diligence, visited both campuses, etc. You should have a pretty good feel for those differences, the people you'll be working with, etc.

If it's still pretty even, think about doing each respected offered job title for 10 years straight. Some days, it may seem as if it's been ten years, after all. Which job role/product team will you be more willing to drag your ass out of bed every morning for, despite all the politics, in-fighting, ladder climbing distractions… Which project will not only highlight your existing skills, but keep you on a good path to push yourself, and gain new skills?

If it's still that unclear after all that, it's likely the money/benefits package fogging you up a bit too much. Pretend they're both paying you $20,000 a year in salary. Which would you be happier to work at then? Go there.

Which offer to choose, Google or Apple?

It seems likely that the transition will take quite a while… That said, it's entirely like that shelf space freed up from software would simply be used to display more hardware and accessories, or possibly to provide additional working space for training sessions and/or troubleshooting issues with customers.

Once the new Apple App Store launches, what will become of the shelf space used for boxed software at the Apple Store and other retail stores?